Salmon Rushdie once wrote, “In order to unlock a society, look at its untranslatable words.” The French term terroir, long isolated to the esoteric analyses of viticulture, has recently emerged from “Sideways” snob vocabulary into mainstream cuisine. Yet this new battle cry of U.S. farmers, foodies and public health advocates has lost its full social »

“Allez cuisine!” With an emphatic karate chop, the room explodes into action. Spitting grease, flashing knives and flying hands whip up a whirring cacophony — vegetables and meats give way beneath quivering fingers. Welcome to Commons-cum-Kitchen Stadium; this is Iron Chef Yale. This past week, in round one of the competition, budding chefs cobbled together »

In high school, aimless excursions to satiate late-night adolescent wanderlust always morphed into quests for blueberry muffins, a blaring Emo soundtrack in the background and miles of black road racing beneath our wheels. Maybe it was because Dunkin Donuts was the only place open past midnight within a 15-mile radius. But maybe ­— more likely »

The Berkeley ’09er across from me sullenly pokes at her charred chicken, scooting it beneath piles of rice, cottage cheese and half-macerated beets like a smoker indifferently toeing a smoldering butt beneath a layer of beach sand. It is not unusual for interactions with dining-hall fare to take on this tinge of food-related depression or, »

It began with an apple; skin taut over glistening flesh, tangy juice running over a trembling lip, drying in sweet stickiness at the corners of a puckered mouth. Or was it a pomegranate? The true identity of the forbidden fruit, unspecified in Genesis, is hotly debated. Some suggest that the apple — non-native to the »